I'm sure critics have their purpose, and they're supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what he did.

Roaming through the jungle of "Ohs" and "Ahs", searching for a more agreeable noise, I live a life of primitivity with the mind of a child and an unquenchable thirst for sharps and flats.

There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!

It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line

Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.

It's like an act of murder - you play with intent to commit something.

Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It's not an occupation or profession, it's a compulsion.